Mentally Unstable Moms Raising Kids

I was just catching up on reading on one of my favorite blogs, when I came across a post about a mother (have to use that term loosely here) exaggerating minor scrapes (from bike riding) to the point of taking the child to the ER to make the other parent look bad (it didn't work thankfully).  It reminded me of what my husband's ex put their daughter through when she was four years old.

The ex used to make the exchange hell for the kids.  Leave with their dad?  Not without tears and a major guilt-trip laid on the kids! 

'Hey kids, while you drive away to spend a little time with your dad, watch me stand at the end of our driveway and cry my eyes out until you turn the corner and can't see me anymore so you worry about me endlessly and don't have any fun with your dad or siblings until you want to come home so I don't cry without you anymore .' 

Yes, that is something my stepson has said - mommy is crying at home without me...I have to go home.

Anyhow, you can imagine what this does to the kids at the time of the exchange - it tears them apart.  A big symptom was stomachaches at the time of the exchange.  Of course, the ex couldn't possibly believe anything SHE had been doing could be the cause of all that pain.  There must be a worrisome medical reason for it.  Let's take the child to the doctor about the stomach pains, not provide them all the proper information (like when it was happening and what you were doing at the time to cause the stress to the child), and put them through scans, x-rays, stool checks and enemas! 

So, how did we stop the ex's continuing saga to find a potentially fatal medical reason for the pains because she didn't have the mental capacity to understand it was HER BEHAVIOR doing it (she thought she was perfect after all)?  We went to the pediatrician's office, gave him the information he should have been given by the ex at the child's first doctor visit, and he stopped all the testing on the poor kid and gave the ex a referral for therapy for the child.  Of course, once the child was in therapy, the therapist saw it was mom's behavior causing the problem and wanted to counsel mom. Mom was too perfect and wasn't doing anything wrong so she refused and took the child out of therapy.  She did this with each therapist who had the nerve to question her behavior as the reason for the children's problems. 

Yeah, that kid who went through hell medically, mentally, and emotionally at the hands of her mother as a four-year-old is now on drugs to help her cope.  Her stress/anxiety levels with her mother were so high, she couldn't cope with anything.  If she'd accidentally brush against her mother in the hallway?  Anxiety and apologies. God forbid she had to burp like most teenagers are apt to do! Seriously! She was so anxious concerning her mother that daily life had her frozen in fear. 

I was hoping my stepdaughter would go a few hours away to college in the fall, but she is going to a college within an hour of home, and within ten minutes of her mother's work.  So much for getting away from her mother.  I'd bet that her mother will have standing dinner dates with her daughter at least a couple times a week.  Leave mommy?  Never!